Back to work!!

Oh, what a long, long, long (long) summer it was, chock full of trying to keep a 9-year-old from getting bored and lethargic.  Needless to say, not much got done in the studio... lol   But, as happens every year, school's back in session and I'm back to work doing what I love the most!   Here are a few samples of things I've been working on lately:

The last two are photos of my prototypes for this year's Christmas ornaments - can't wait to have a whole wall of them ready and waiting for the holiday show season!  These are made out of polymer clay and aluminum flashing, but I'm also thinking about trying a few with wooden hearts.  The initial creative process is so much fun for me - once I get the overall design and materials nailed down it's mostly just a matter of production line assembly (which for me is FAR more enjoyable than sitting in a cubicle!), but the real creative energy comes at this beginning point, when everything is still possible.

Pressing on, regardless

Winter was hard on me this year.  For some reason, the cold and the dark really affected me - mostly I just wanted to hide under my electric blanket and ignore everything that was not mission-critical.  Who would have imagined that one could get Seasonal Affective Disorder even in the south???  Thankfully spring has sprung and things are beginning to wake up around these parts - including me.  I've been noodling around in the studio quite a bit lately (trying to make up for lost time!) and trying some new things.  As I've mentioned before, whatever I'm working through in life inevitably comes up in my art, so make of this what you will..!

You are SO loved!

Happy (belated) 2013!  I tried to post something right after the new year dawned, but Blogger is determined that I will no longer be able to efficiently post anything through Internet Explorer, and I just wasn't ready to be held hostage to Chrome, so... procrastination won out.  I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world to be occasionally emotionally defeated by technology, but wow - floored by my own stubbornness sometimes.  (Me and my first-world problems).

ANYway... with a mind to the upcoming and ever-popular Hallmark holiday of hearts and flowers, I was noodling around in the studio and came up with this series:

Which of course lead me to question why it is that we feel the need to set aside only ONE specific day a year on which to tell people how special they are to us, and how loved?  Shouldn't that be the goal pretty much EVERY day - to take a moment's pause and shower the people we love with love?  (with apologies to James Taylor for the blatant rip-off).  One of my official "New Year New Start" promises to myself was to take more time for doing just that - sending more love out into the world, intentionally, thoughtfully, and with no expectation of reciprocity or acknowledgement.  It is tough to resist getting caught up in the "daily grind" - old habits die hard, I suppose - but I really do *want* to live a more intentional and meaningful life.  

I've also been working to expand on my "you can do hard things" line, because I am madly in love with it.  It's not a bad thing that I currently have a studio full of these that I get to look at every day... LOL

I also had a commission earlier this month - a great big Serene Buddha piece (20"x20") that took me forever because the tiny town I live in did NOT have a Buddha head that I could cast a mold from for the faces.  (Well, the fact that I live in the Bible Belt may also have had something to do with that - I suspect there are not too many Buddhists lurking around in this particular corner of the sandbox).  I did find the perfect thing on Etsy (yeah!!!) from which to make a mold just the right size, which I have been playing around with in other pieces to find something that works the way I wanted it to.  I'm not quite there yet, but I've had fun "doodling":

Fighting the urge the last couple of weeks to hibernate - it's been very cold lately, and all I want to do is huddle under my electric blankie and watch my backlog of recorded episodes of Project Runway.  *sigh*  I'm really ready for a girl's trip somewhere warm and toasty, to thaw out my spirit and reconnect with the people who know me best - asking the Universe for some unexpected abundance to help facilitate that!!